Read The Ice People for Free Online Page A

contained, in a pale yellow suit with combat trousers.
    ‘No – of course not. How could I be? But perhaps you could sometimes wear a shirt. I mean, we’re not nineteen any more.’
    ‘That’s why I think we should try for a baby.’
    She looked thwarted, as though I were being obtuse, but surely she was being obtuse? ‘I’d just like to earn enough for us to have a house. Move out of the city. Then the child could have a garden.’
    ‘You mean, stay in England?’ I was dismayed.
    ‘Don’t take me so literally,’ she snapped. ‘I just think we should be practical. You’re a dreamer, Saul. I have to plan for us both.’
    ‘I thought we’d already made plans,’ I said. ‘Travel, remember. Children. Freedom. I could earn good money with my research.’
    ‘Well, they don’t give a crash about gender in Ghana,’ she flared at me. ‘Have you thought about that? Do you ever think? I couldn’t do
my
work in Ghana. I couldn’t earn any money in Ghana.’
    ‘Look, I gave up Ghana, you know I did. But I could support you. I could,’ I begged. ‘It’s what we used to talk about. You could be a mother, I could be the man … I’d really like to look after you.’
    To my surprise, she began to cry. ‘It sounds beautiful, when you say that. I don’t know why I’m crying, I must be going soft … Of course I want a baby, more than anything.’
    ‘Then why don’t we try? Let’s try right away!’
    Her precise new face was blurred with tears. She stared up at me from her seat in the window. She had tugged her tailored hair out of shape; it looked softer, more human, fraying at the edges. ‘I’m afraid, I think,’ she said, slowly. ‘I don’t want to fail, like everyone else.’
    And then I was a man, and she was a woman. ‘I’ll make you pregnant. Of course I will. Just let me finish looking at this data … I’m tying up loose ends on that hoax last year.’
    ‘Not the Antarctic thing? I thought that was all forgotten?’
    ‘This woman is testing her ice thicknesses again. It has to be done at the same time each year.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got things to do. We’ll meet at bedtime and – have a go.’
    Not very romantic, but I didn’t care. My heart was singing. Now life would begin. I flicked on my screen and stared at it through a brilliant film of happiness, scanning automatically across the sites till I came to Professor Raven’s homepage.
    The data was back, I registered at once. Good, so now this thing would be buried. The Globecorps would have to try another tack. The future would be hot; hotter; hottest …
I hope our baby won’t be hairy,
I thought,
particularly if she’s a girl …
Yet something on the screen was demanding attention, pulling me down from my place on the ceiling.
    Improbably, it had happened again. Raven’s second set of data showed the icesheets still thickening. The results this time were more dramatic, an increased rate of change upon the year before. The report was concise, but Professor Raven had added a footnote. ‘I am of course aware that these results will be scanned by screens all over the world and made use of for various ends by the Globecorps. I am not responsible for their interpretations or misinterpretations, but I can vouch for the data’s accuracy. Sceptics might care to crossrefer to Achtheim, Dr Gisele,
Alpine Glacial Movement,
and Geronimo, Professor Jean,
A Puzzle for the Icebreakers.’
    When I finally lay naked with Sarah in my arms, more excited perhaps than I had ever been since the first time I lay with her, my love was shivering with nervousness, and as I stroked her arms and breasts and felt the small goosebumps begin to subside I thought about cold, and the sheets of ice, the vast fields of ice where the sun never set, and how strange and beautiful it would be if the great bluewhitenesses were creeping back. The children came running over the ice, shrieking with laughter, clutching each other, sliding down to the